The Unseen Force

Following his highly successful "An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith," Muir turns to the life and work of legendary cult-film director Sam Raimi. Included are 30 first-person accounts and interviews from eclectic sources, and a sneak peak at Spider-Man 2.

This book by Canadian-born mystical writer Manly P. Hall comprises of a series of lectures on nature spirits, thought forms, ghosts and specters, the dweller on the threshold. This compilation was first published in 1924.

The Battle of Albrith is over. The battle for Faneria has just begun. Magic is forbidden in Faneria. That's why it came as a complete surprise when the king's city was attacked by a band of rogue mages. Though they were thwarted, Damian Sires, instrumental in their defeat, is known for only one thing—her magic. She returns home to a cold welcome and an even greater threat looming. For Niabi, servant of the Gods of Light, is amassing an army far to the west. After Niabi fought the Goddess of Chaos in the streets of Albrith with no thought to the damage she caused, Damian knows that this Army of Light spells disaster. Guarded at all times and accompanied by a former mercenary with a dark past, Damian sets out to stop Niabi from wreaking havoc on her country. However, even more dangerous secrets and plots are about to emerge...

The contribution of culture to organizational performance is substantial and quantifiable. In The Culture Cycle, renowned thought leader James Heskett demonstrates how an effective culture can account for 20-30% of the differential in performance compared with "culturally unremarkable" competitors. Drawing on decades of field research and dozens of case studies, Heskett introduces a powerful conceptual framework for managing culture, and shows it at work in a real-world setting. Heskett's "culture cycle" identifies cause-and-effect relationships that are crucial to shaping effective cultures, and demonstrates how to calculate culture's economic value through "Four Rs": referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships. This book: Explains how culture evolves, can be shaped and sustained, and serve as the organization's "internal brand." Shows how culture can promote innovation and survival in tough times. Guides leaders in linking culture to strategy and managing forces that challenge it. Shows how to credibly quantify culture's impact on performance, productivity, and profits. Clarifies culture's unique role in mission-driven organizations. A follow-up to the classic Corporate Culture and Performance (authored by Heskett and John Kotter), this is the next indispensable book on organizational culture. "Heskett (emer., Harvard Business School) provides an exhaustive examination of corporate policies, practices, and behaviors in organizations." Summing Up: Recommended. Reprinted with permission from CHOICE, copyright by the American Library Association.

From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. • Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.

The "next step" for those who want to discover angels in their lives, this book goes beyond angelic appearances to a keen new awareness of how angels influence world evolution and one's own personal psyche. You will explore new research on angels' roles in personal and planetary karma, the angelic hierarchy, the origin and destiny of Christ, archangels and fallen angels, and the meaning of angels in the Revelation.

Considered by many to be the magazine of record for ancient mysteries, future science, and unexplained anomalies, Atlantis Rising® provides some of the most astounding reading to be found anywhere. In case you may have missed it, in the past few years a virtual revolution has occurred in the way we think about some of the greatest mysteries in history and science. Such is the case with the discovery of Gobekli Tepe, a 12,000 year-old archaeological site of an unknown advanced civilization that could well change the timeline of human history. This book provides some astonishing evidence about several similar mysteries, and many of them are very hard to ignore. Editor J. Douglas Kenyon has culled from the pages of Atlantis Rising® magazine this collection of 34 concise and well-illustrated articles by world-class researchers and theoreticians who offer thought-provoking insights on a variety of topics that challenge conventional wisdom. Featuring: Underwater UFO Bases, by David H. Childress Nikola Tesla & the God Particle, by Marc J. Seifer H. G. Wells and the Near Death Experience, by John Chambers Ancient High Tech and the Ark of the Covenant, by Frank Joseph Telescopes and the Ancients, by Larry Brian Radka Enigma of the Crystal Skulls, David H. Childress Ancient Wings Over the Nile, by Joseph Robert Jochmans Global Cooling, by Susan Martinez Is Our Planet a Crystal?, by Joseph Robert Jochmans